Minister of State in charge of Public Procurement, Hon. Sarah Adwoa Safo, has commended the Ministry of Education, particularly the sector minister, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, for strictly adhering to the procurement laws on the various procurement activities his outfit was undertaking for the implementation of the free Senior High School (SHS) policy.
She said given the components that constitute Free SHS, she noticed that the programme was going to be laden with a lot of procurement activities. That, she said, was her reason to pay a working visit last Monday to learn at first hand the kind of procurement methods being used and to advise accordingly.
Adwoa Safo noted that the Free SHS was an important government flagship which has attracted many opinions and now that it was going to be implemented in a few weeks, it did not need any further controversies, especially regarding the procurement processes.
However, after receiving briefings from Dr. Opoku Prempeh over how his outfit was going about the procurement processes, she was left with no other choice than to commend the education minister and his team for a good job done.
She used the opportunity to also advice Dr. Opoku Prempeh and his team to be mindful of a new directive from cabinet to seek its approval of any procurement that exceeds the GH₵50 million threshold.
The public procurement minister, therefore, used the occasion to inform the education minister and his team about some of the government policies she was implementing to strengthen the country’s procurement system to ensure value for money.
For instance, she said in order to strengthen the capacities of local contractors, the government has made a policy where 70% of all its contracts or projects shall be awarded to local contractors.
And out of that, she said 70%, 30% of the contracts or projects shall be awarded to Persons With Disabilities (PWDs), women and those in youth employment.
“It is a policy the government under the leadership of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is committed to implementing. Very soon, my office will come out with how it is going to be done,” she noted.
She also told Dr. Opoku Prempeh and his team about efforts her ministry was putting in place to get the two existing Public Procurement Act (Act 663) and Public Procurement (Amended) Act (Act 914) harmonised for easy reading and referencing.
She also disclosed plans by her office to establish an e-platform which will contain a database of the records of all contractors involved in government projects.
“With this database, the citizenry could at any given time, assess the performance of all the contractors to know who is doing well and who is doing badly,” she explained.
For his part, Dr. Opoku Prempeh expressed his outfit’s appreciation to Hon. Adwoa Safo’s visit and noted that the government’s flagship free SHS policy would be implemented with due regard to the laws of the land.
He said the policy, which was packed with equity, quality and employable skills, would be rolled out in three weeks time and was very optimistic that its successful implementation will inure to the benefits of all.
The education minister further noted that despite the heavy investment government was making in the implementation of the Free SHS policy, his outfit would also ensure that subsidies for continuing students, capitation grant and teacher-trainee allowances are promptly paid.
Story: Freeman Koryekpor Awlesu
